Medicine 2022 - Decision time!

[Monkey2001]

Support thread for aspiring medics.

We want all our DCs to succeed, whatever their school type. We share knowledge to help them to achieve their goals, celebrate success and support if things don't go well.

Lots of interviews now done, fingers crossed for lots of offers, but we know it is a tough year and that most applicants will have a bumpy ride. Best of luck everyone!

Previous thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/a4358647-Medicine-2022-entry?msgid=114590369#114590369

2023 applicant thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/higher_education/4459778-Medicine-2023-Entry

Not checked in for a while. DD is a gap year applicant. After no offers last year, she had 3 this year - Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester and was wait listed for Newcastle. She has decided to go with Bristol and as she already has grades, that is it! So she is looking at accommodation and trying to make her mind up which to put down.

She has really enjoyed her gap year. She has done a lot of travelling after the interviews and is now looking forward to getting started! Just needs to top up her savings now until it's time to head off in September!

Good luck to those still waiting. And for those who may have to take a gap year, don't think of it as a bad thing and look at some of the positives that can come out of it. DD says she feels it has been a positive experience and she feels better prepared and rested to start in September.

I would second this. There were a lot of very frustrated people on TSR over the last few years, baffled why they failed to get an interview from Cardiff. With most other universities, at least you know - your UCAT wasn't high enough (even if the cut off shot up, at least you understand what happened), you didn't have the contextual points, what have you. But Cardiff and a few others (Kings springs to mind), it is just really unclear as to what the defining line is, so it can feel like a wasted application

That's very helpful, as DS applied to Cardiff last cycle and was rejected pre interview and we weren't sure why. He had 7 9s and 3 8s so we were a bit baffled as his UCAT was above average too. He was going to reapply there but perhaps he should give it a miss.

Is there a guide as to what they are looking for in a PS? Ds is applying for dentistry rather than medicine, but I assume it is fairly similar. His careers teacher was woeful and didn't even review it.

Has he requested feedback? Not sure whether they offer it if you did not get an interview, but it is worth asking. I would not assume medicine and dentistry are the same, so I can't give any advice. Check out the dentistry threads on the student room www.thestudentroom.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=194

@mubarak86 as others have already said, Cardiff is a bit opaque ! Def helps a lot to be Welsh. And no one really knows how they choose people - so if have other choices steer clear.
@FanSpamTastic just got back from Bristol. Lovely day on the Downs with DD. It's such a lovely place to live and be a student.
For PS for dentistry it's showing what you have learned from any work experience - understand what they do (may sound strange but some just write about filings and miss things like oral health prevention). Know the funding structure and the issues this causes with NHS treatments. Know what skills are required (manual dexterity, eye for detail etc).

Does anyone know whether a large proportion of QUB medic students go home at weekends?

I'm not sure if everyone is aware but Cardiff are also running 2 separate interview streams - in Welsh Language and in English. Although not stated on Cardiff's policies - welsh speakers are strongly encouraged to apply through welsh language interview route. I don't know if post-interview all scores (English & Welsh) are compared and the strongest made offers but, politically, there is a lot of pressure to i) keep more Doctors in wales (and students already living in Wales are more likely to stay) and ii) increase welsh language provision in public services. Also those being interviewed in welsh will be from a much smaller pool so the competition will be less and perhaps the interviewers won't be exposed to potentially stronger english-only speaking applicants. The comparisons will be far less. As others have said Cardiff are very opaque but it's under a different govt. and different set of political pressures which may be influencing shortlisting and selection.

Re: grades - my DS is lucky enough to have 2 offers A*AA and AAA asks. He's Y13 so going through stress of A levels currently. He had a bit of a 'mare with Physics last week and I'm just wondering if the Unis are likely to have any flexibility this year with grades? I realise they won't allow multiple grade drops but if he, for example, got AAB - and was close to the A grade boundary with the B (raw mark/UMS) - would they allow for that? My thinking being last year, 2021, there was massive grade inflation and this years 2022 cohort will have half that amount. They've also missed significant amounts of A level schooling during the pandemic and are now having to sit external exams, with no real prior experience (from GCSEs etc) and are also competing against last year's students on an unequal playing/grade field. I realise the answer is probably 'no' but I just feel like he & his year have jumped through so many hoops with missed-teaching, home-schooling, PS/UCAT/BMAT/Interviews etc and to possibly miss out by a grade, and his place, to possibly someone who may have benefited from a different amount of grade inflation last year seems a little unfair. {This is not a 'pop' at last year's cohort - just a reflection on the crappy situation this year's Y13 seem to be in as the 'adjustment' year: with all of the pressure and not really the same benefits as those they're up against}

@Angharad01 as someone on a waiting list we are obviously hoping that they are strict on grades!! The grade boundaries should go down, both because this is going to be a generous year and because the lost learning across all students means that most struggled. If everyone found the Physics hard, the grade boundaries should reflect that.

Historically Leeds have been lenient on missed grades and Leicester and Liverpool treat A*AB as equivalent to AAA if that helps. In a normal year around 40% of people miss the grades.

@Monkey2001 wow, I did not know it was as high as 40% missing grades. So if everyone got their grades (for medicine because of grade inflation last year/2021), and same inflation is being halved this year (2022), I guess very roughly 20% or a fifth won’t make the grade for their medicine offers this year?
If they don’t, I guess a gap year is out of the question - as they don’t have grades to reapply - so they have to pick another course, at short notice, from clearing?
Do any Unis accept resits for medicine or is the competition too great from those with achieved grades and first time/Y13 applicants? Just trying to plan for worst case scenario.
Good luck also on your waiting list - hopefully we’re at different unis (Southampton & KCL here).

@Angharad01 most medical schools accept resits these days, although some expect an A* if only resitting one subject. It is worth being prepared for not getting the grades, but hopefully the grade boundaries will just be low enough for your DS to meet his offers if the exams don't go so well.

If he doesn't get the grades he has a MUCH better chance of studying medicine if he takes a gap year and re-sits rather than applying later as a grad.

Angharad, pre covid medical schools were expected to get their numbers right. Too many or too few, and they got fined. They were normally reasonably good at predicting how many might miss and to what extent they needed to over offer. If too many missed grades they might accept some anyway, and some maintained discrete waiting lists or, on occasion went back to applicants they had previously rejected. SGUL was unusual in that it would go into clearing. There were also stories of medical schools who had gone over numbers offering students financial incentives to defer.

So it depends. DD was surprised when she started at how many of her peers had missed grades and still got in.

Last year was chaos. Virtually no one missed grades, and a number of medical schools ended up with too many. This creates on-going problems with spaces in lecture rooms, GP placements, clinical placements and so on. The last thing a medical school wants this year is too many achieved offers. It is reasonable to expect that they are being cautious and will fill any spare places with either waiting lists, which seem to be much more of a thing this year. Or by allowing people in with missed grades, or in some instances through clearing. As in pre-covid years, it really isn't over until term starts.

Resit and reapplication is very possible. Some research is needed as to which medical schools allow resits, but medical school websites/Student Room should have the answers.

Your point about Cardiff offering interviews in Welsh is interesting. Inter alia, non English mother tongue students, however fluent, tend to do less well at UCAT. DD is at Bristol which has a lot of students from Wales. One reason they give for preferring Bristol to Cardiff is that placements are less spread out. Cardiff has placements all over Wales, some of which are hard to reach.

Good luck.

Re Cardiff Uni: Around 67% of students who study Medicine at Cardiff stay in Wales and 60% of students who study Medicine somewhere else don't come back to Wales. As a result there is a huge recruitment drive to attract Welsh students, and especially Welsh speaking students. There is a £500/year incentive for studying at least 33% of the course in Welsh for the first 4 years which is helpful and free Welsh language courses are offered to all. I think around 15% of the 1st year Med students are on the Welsh stream. DD is a first year Medic at Cardiff and loves it and chose it over two other offers.

@Card1gan totally understand Cardiff's logic. Just wish they'd be open and honest about it, as many English students apply when they have no hope, despite perfect GCSEs and fab UCAT. It wastes one choice.
And it is a fab Uni which produces amazing graduates 🤣😇

@Thethingswedoforlove DD is at Queens and she hardly ever comes home.... but I think it is likely because she is in BT2 halls, which seem to have more RUK and international students.

@Millylovespuddles thank you. Great information. Really helpful. Thank you

Sounds like Cardiff is adopting a similar approach to some (all)) if the Scottish medical schools in operating a two tier system in order to 'grow their own' doctors. I can understand that but they should be completely transparent about it to avoid applicants applying when the odds are stacked against them.

I meant to put a ? after 'all'. Not sure that all Scottish universities do have lower entry requirements for Scottish students. I know some do.

I agree that transparency would be beneficial to future applicants so they're not 'wasting' a choice. I remember how annoyed DD was when Plymouth moved their goalposts after she applied (initially promised an interview to everone with UCAT over a certain value but quickly realised this wouldn't be possible so upped the predicted grade requirements retrospectively). However, I don't think they're quite as two tier as some of the Scottish universities as there are far more non Welsh students on the course. In fact, DDs friends and housemates for next year are all from England or Northern Ireland.

Isn’t it the case that many/most medical schools are interested in students who are likely to stay and work within the Trust. And that statistically local students are likely to do this. Wasn’t it Lincoln, or one of the other new medical schools, who were looking primarily at students from a specific geographical area. When DD was applying, St Andrews had something about students with an interest in rural medicine. Bristol encourages applicants from the South West via linked school schemes supported by contextual offers and foundation years. Similar for us. The older girls DD knew through sport and who applied for medicine seemed invariably to go to SGUL, then later when I was going through a series of medical tests, the young doctors I met had qualified at either SGUL or Imperial.

My assumption is that if you want to maximise your chances of getting into medical school and you meet criteria, you apply locally and at interview state a long term vocation to be a GP serving your local community. The exception being some of the more competitive BMAT schools, where friends who interview tell me they are told to look for academic highfliers who might be potential researchers. (My friends, who are consultants roped in to interview, would prefer to prioritise young people with the breadth to make good, patient facing, doctors.)

UCLan only recruit International and local (NW England) students, but I think that is a WP thing and it is a TINY course. The London ones won't care whether you want to stay in London as far too many young doctors want to stay there already.

The Scottish Funding Council back-tracked on the ring fencing of places for Scottish applicants this year, but it may have come too late for the medical schools to amend their shortlisting procedures as SFC released numbers 13th April. If they do the same next year this could be a game changer for RUK applicants to Scotland. www.sfc.ac.uk/publications-statistics/announcements/2022/SFCAN112022.aspx

Bristol University has a scheme across all subjects to support local applicants, they don't have any preference for medics who will stay in the area, although a lot do. I think most of the schemes to help local applicants are the same - more about WP than recruiting people who will stay in the area.

Monkey, a small point, but I don't think it is true that London has a surplus of Doctors. Yes F1/2 jobs are very competitive as are training jobs in London teaching hospitals. However beyond that hospitals appear to be finding it genuinely hard to recruit. Certainly DD has been advised that if she wants to return to London it will be much easier at Registrar/Consultant level. And as for GPs....London faces a severe shortage. I don't know the numbers but SGUL seem to recruit a lot of London based students, who then stay on to practice long term.

My understanding overall is that Medical Schools want to recruit 60% future GPs. I still reckon that in most cases saying you want to be a GP will give a slight edge at interview.

Isn’t it the case that many/most medical schools are interested in students who are likely to stay and work within the Trust. And that statistically local students are likely to do this.

This has been part of the justification for each new medical school that has opened since 2000. They have generally been set up in areas where there are shortages of doctors and of local students going to medical school. Statistically you are probably correct but it's not cut & dried: students from particular demographic groups are more likely to stay in their home area to practise after graduation but it's not universal. Having a local medical school is part of the approach as it might make medical study possible for students who either can't afford to move away or have social/cultural bars to doing so. The highest priority is to get students from under-doctored areas into medical school, no matter where it is, as they are at least slightly more likely to return home to work: this is one of the reasons for UKWPMED.

at interview state a long term vocation to be a GP serving your local community

Most interviews won't give you the opportunity to do this, with the possible exception of ScotGEM and others with a specific goal of recruiting GPs for a particular region. In general, we don't want interview candidates to express an interest in a single career pathway as they don't yet know what options they have. Because expressing an interest in something super-specialised, like forensic pathology, or something you probably don't understand the reality of, like paediatrics, is generally seen as a bad thing, we generally try to avoid tempting candidates into stating career preferences.

Thanks. Interesting.

Thinking about it the question DD got from a couple of medical schools was what she would want to study instead should she not get a place, rather than the field of medicine she might want to study. Bizarrely the person roped in to interview that day was from that medicine related field.

I had heard that some medical schools have a reputation for producing GPs. Maybe a myth. I had simply extrapolated that they might be actively seeking potential GPs. (The daughter of a GP I know went there, and is now doing her GP training, so something worked!)